Holy cow...

Workbook lesson 38.. ONLY number 38... and yet.... this powerful message:

"There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

Talk about hitting the ground running. It also says:

"Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator."

So early in the book and I know for a fact that when I went through these earlier lessons I felt so new to all this terminology and stuff, talking about me being "holy" .. I probably could not really relate to it or believe it. It seemed so lofty and advanced. It still does somewhat, but maybe I have made some progress ;-)

There is NOTHING my holiness cannot do because its unlimited power comes from God!

Suck that, ego world.

Some related quotes about what the body cannot do and how it limits you. You can become free of the limitations, but ultimately not WITHOUT the body disappearing entirely. God cannot enter a body, nor can you join him there.

"It is only the awareness of the body that makes love seem limited. For the body IS a limit on love. The belief in limited love was its origin, and it was MADE to limit the UNlimited. Think not that this is merely allegorical; for it was made to limit YOU."

"The body cannot KNOW. And while you limit your awareness to its tiny senses, you will not see the grandeur that surrounds you."

"God cannot come into a body, nor can you join Him there. Limits on love will ALWAYS seem to shut Him out, and to keep you APART from Him. "

"The body is a tiny fence around a little part of a glorious and completely limitless idea. It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little segment of Heaven, splintered from the whole, proclaiming that, within it, is YOUR Kingdom, where God can enter not. Within this kingdom the ego rules, and cruelly. And, to defend this little speck of dust, it bids you fight against the universe."

"To see a body as anything EXCEPT a means of pure extension is to limit your mind and hurt yourself. "

"As the ego would LIMIT your perception of your brothers to the body, so would the Holy spirit RELEASE your vision, and let you see the Great Rays shining from them, so unlimited that they reach to God. It is this shift in vision that is accomplished in the holy instant."

"For the body IS little and limited, and only those whom you would see WITHOUT the limits that the ego would impose on them, can offer YOU the gift of freedom."

"No-one can BE beyond the limitless, because what has NO limits, must be everywhere. There are no beginnings and no endings in God, Whose Universe is Himself. "

"Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself. The body is a limit. Who would seek for freedom in a body looks for it where it can not be found. The mind can be made free when it no longer sees itself as in a body, firmly tied to it and sheltered by its presence."

"For what you think is sin is LIMITATION; and whom you try to limit to the body you hate because you fear. In your refusal to forgive him, you would condemn him"

"Who transcends the body has transcended limitation."

"The special relationship is totally without meaning WITHOUT A BODY."

"The body is a fence the Son of God imagines he has built to separate parts of his Self from other parts. It is within this fence he thinks he lives, to die as it decays and crumbles. For within this fence he thinks that he is safe from love. Identifying with his safety, he regards himself as what his safety is. How else could he be certain he remains within the body, keeping love outside? The body will not stay."

"The body is a dream."

"The body is the ego's home by its own election. It is the only identification with which it feels safe, because the body's vulnerability is its own best argument that you CANNOT be of God. "

"Only bodies can be attacked."

"The body is the symbol of the ego, as the ego is the symbol of separation. And both are nothing more than attempts to LIMIT communication, and thereby TO MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE. For communication MUST be UNlimited in order to HAVE meaning, and DEPRIVED of meaning, it will NOT satisfy YOU completely. Yet it remains the ONLY means by which you CAN establish real relationships."

"As something is the body asked to be God's enemy, replacing what He is with littleness and limit and despair. It is HIS loss you celebrate when you behold the body as a thing you love, or look upon it as a thing you hate."

"Each miracle He brings is witness that the body is NOT real."

"The body is the central figure in the dreaming of the world. There IS no dream without it, nor does it exist without the dream, in which it acts as if it were a person"

"The body is the symbol of what you THINK you are. It is clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist."

"The body can bring you neither peace nor turmoil; not pain nor joy. It is a means, and NOT an end."

"For holiness is positive, and the body is merely neutral. It is not sinful, but neither is it sinless."

"You see the flesh or recognize the Spirit. There is no compromise between the two. If one is real the other must be unreal."

"The ego's fundamental wish is to replace God. In fact, the ego is the physical embodiment of this wish. For it is this wish which seems to surround the mind with a body, keeping it separate and alone; and unable to reach other minds except through the body which was made to imprison it. The limit on communication cannot be the best means to expand communication. Yet the ego would have you believe that it is."

"We have seen ourselves in a body and the truth outside us, locked away from your awareness by the body's limitations."

"Forgiveness lets the body be perceived as what it is; a simple teaching aid to be laid by when learning is complete, but hardly changing him who learns at all. The mind without the body cannot make mistakes. It cannot think that it will die, nor be the prey of merciless attack. Anger becomes impossible, and where is terror then? What fears could still assail those who have lost the source of all attack; the core of anguish and the seat of fear?"

"You CANNOT make the body the Holy Spirit's temple, and it will NEVER be the seat of love. It is the home of the idolater, and of love's condemnation. For here is love made fearful, and hope abandoned. Even the idols that are worshipped here are shrouded deep in mystery, and kept apart from those who worship them. This is the temple dedicated to no relationships, and no return. Here is the "mystery" of separation perceived in awe and held in reverence. What God would have NOT be, is here kept "safe" from Him. "

"Yet would I offer you my BODY, you whom I love, KNOWING its littleness? "

"The body is the instrument the mind made in its striving to deceive itself. Its purpose is to strive."

"A miracle reawakens the awareness that the spirit, and not the body, is the altar of Truth."

"The body DOES appear to be the symbol of sin, while you believe that it can get you what you want. While you believe that it can give you pleasure, you will ALSO believe that it can bring you pain. To think you could be satisfied and happy with so little, IS to hurt yourself. And to LIMIT the happiness that you would have, CALLS upon pain to fill your meager store, and make your lives complete. This IS completion, as the ego sees it."

"If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind must be STRONGER. "

"The Holy Spirit's purpose lies safe in your relationship, and not your bodies. You have ESCAPED the body. Where you are now, the body cannot enter, for the Holy Spirit has set HIS temple there. "

"As nothing, which it is, the body cannot meaningfully be invested with attributes of Christ OR of the ego."

"The body cannot create, and the belief that it CAN, a fundamental error responsible for most of the fallacies already referred to, produces all physical symptoms."

"The body cannot see this, for the body AROSE from this for its protection, which must ALWAYS depend on keeping it NOT seen. The body's eyes will NEVER SEE."

"A mind and body cannot both exist. Make no attempt to reconcile the two, for one denies the other can be real. If you are physical your mind is gone from your self-concept, for it has no place in which it could be really part of you. If you are Spirit, then the body must be meaningless to your reality."

"The Holy Spirit is not concerned with form at all, being aware only of meaning. The ego cannot ask the Holy Spirit for anything, because there is COMPLETE COMMUNICATION FAILURE between them. But you can ask everything of the Holy Spirit, because your requests are real, being of your will."

"It is extremely simple, being based on what this little kingdom really IS. The barren sands, the darkness, and the lifelessness are seen only through the body's eyes. ITS vision IS distorted, and the messages IT transmits to you, who MADE it to limit your awareness, ARE little and limited, so fragmented that they are meaningless. From the world of bodies, MADE by insanity, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind which made it. And these messages bear witness to this world, pronouncing it as true. For YOU sent forth these messengers, to bring this BACK to you.

Everything these messages relay to you is quite external. There are NO messages that speak of what lies underneath, for it is NOT the body that could speak of this. Its eyes perceive it not, its senses remain quite UNAWARE of it, its tongue can not relay ITS messages."

"The body's eyes were made not to see." "They cannot see" "They will never see."

God's omnipresence doesn't mean that He is located at each location in SPACE. Space itself is a lie. It's an illusion of separation. It's easy to believe God is some great big huge thing so vast that he covers the whole universe, and so, your little spot on planet Earth is... a hair on his knee.

God isn't like that. It's not that PART of God is in one place, while another PART of God is in another. God defies spacetime.

All of God is over here. And, all of God is over there.

There is no compromise in this. It's not that the parts of God over here can't also be over there. It's not that most of Him is over here, with leftover parts over there. This would be true of objects in this world, but it's not true of God. God is not limited in a finite way.

This is what makes God's nature a little difficult to get your head around, because it defies all laws of space and time, separation of locations, boundaries, limits, etc.

The entire 'personality' of God is over here, in this location, fully present, completely fully located there with no lack or limitation or partiality. And to the ego that means, there is no God left to be anywhere else. But God defies the ego. God is ALSO over there, fully, completely, totally present, ALL of Him is over there, as well as over here. Simultaneously.

God transcends spacetime limits. If you were to think of Him in terms of space, you'd have to imagine an extraordinary warping of space, the likes of which you might only conceive of happening in a wormhole or black hole perhaps, there space itself becomes distorted, or two locations share the same space or overlap.

God's foundation of omnipresence is the root reality behind all things. In the "separation from God", we introduced the idea that SOME of what was "over here" was perhaps "not over there". Or that only PART of reality is present. Or that what is in one location, is missing from another location. THAT is what the ego thought system is based on - the OPPOSITE of omnipresence. The idea that there is limitation, lack, an inability to share, isolation, confinement, exclusion, partiality, loss of wholeness, locality and so on.

Particles of matter, including formations as the human body, are merely ideas of this breakdown in omnipresence. They are "localizations" which EXCLUDE what is outside in order to define something exclusive to the inside. "A little fence the Son of God has surrounding himself with" (paraphrase).

The body is an attempt to REJECT a vast majority of what exists, while simultaneously taking EXCLUSIVE possession of one little tiny part - which is the idea of specialness. And this is also why "special relationships" revolve around the body and keeping the body real. The body "disconnects" you from sharing the whole. It asserts that only a tiny PART of yourself is here, while the rest of you is forgotten. Or that there are special things here which are not present anywhere else - uniqueness. And it is this uniqueness that the ego loves to worship. Something that makes you seem DIFFERENT, something about your self that no-one else has. Something that SEPARATES YOU OUT.

This is why the body is always fundamentally a device for separation, even in its most spiritualized form of being used by the mind to try to extend love in the world. The body must go, because it is the "concentration" of "omnipresent-space" which attempts to SHUT OUT the whole in order to focus on the part. The whole (God) and the part (Son/soul) has to be fully united in omnipresence in order that they SHARE fully everything everywhere with each other. Separation from God is merely the attempt to separate part from whole and identify yourself as partial. This is why it has only affected a PART of your mind.

This is also why there cannot be a body of ANY KIND in omnipresent reality, because this would isolate and separate us from each other. We would not be able to SHARE, because bodies are devices that PREVENT sharing.

The unique thing we need to realize, is that while we are very used to living in ISOLATION, trapped in a body, fenced off and kept apart from the rest, this is HIGHLY UNNATURAL. In our natural state, WE ARE EVERYWHERE, we share ALL of creation, WE ARE OMNIPRESENT LIKE GOD. This follows also the law of God which is the Golden Rule. You are IN your brother. Your brother is IN you. God is in everyone. We are all everywhere.

This is why miracles unite you with your brother, and restore the omnipresent reality. You don't merely join or connect or 'touch', your MERGE and OVERLAP and SHARE SPACE. You exist in the same exact location as everyone else, sharing infinity forever.

There was a definite time when it first occurred to me that I am not a body. I was sitting at a bus-stop waiting for the bus ride to or from college. I was probably 19 or so. I was there alone and was looking across a field at some traffic passing by, pondering perhaps symbolically from a detached perspective what all these people were doing in their lives. That's when it suddenly hit me, like, oh my God, I'm not a body!

It wasn't a complete awakening as such, I didn't suddenly relinquish every single way in which I think of others and myself as bodies, but just the idea of it was given birth, perhaps marking the beginning of a spiritual adventure in self exploration. It was like a first step through a doorway into a whole new way of relating to myself.

Jesus knew fully that he was not a body. He was capable of manifesting and dematerializing his body, and in fact was capable of re-manifesting different bodies depending on who he was with. That's what becomes possible when you are completely free of all confusion about what you are - that you or others are not a body at all. That's what it means to have mastery over it and freedom from it. It no longer limits you or defines your identity.

If there is fear in you, and if you are projecting it outward, you will project it onto specific things. This is because fear is divisive and not whole, so it attaches to PARTS OF the environment. And in particular it can project onto a specific body.

When fear is projected, another's body is seen in a very isolating way. Fear distorts perception heavily and anchors you into the physical. It then seems that only the physical exists, only the physical rules apply, only physical causation is real, and there is no escape from anything.

By making your brother's body his "reality", focusing on its condition or form or appearance, projecting fear onto it, you turn it into an enemy. You give it power over you. Your whole awareness sinks into the ego and you can find no way out.

As the body is given reality, which is very easy to do when you are afraid, your whole focus shuts out the mind and awareness of any higher truth. And now you feel like you are completely imprisoned and held captive by this "sinful body" you see. Like you are locked in and completely at its effect. Anything it does, or doesn't do, now seems to completely affect you against your will, as if you have no ability to stop it or do anything about it. If the person has a sickness or problem and cannot fix it, or isn't trying to, you will now feel like they are imposing limits on you and forcing you to suffer.

Seeing yourself as a victim of this dynamic, already deep in fear with nowhere to turn, everything now seems like a closed system. Having bound your brother to his body, imprisoning him, you see yourself as imprisoned. And now your brother's body seems to be attacking you. This incites reactions of even more fear, which turns into anger and rage, justified due to what he seems to be doing to you.

It will now feel like there is nothing you can do to be free, as if your mind is somehow locked onto their body state, as if you have merged with it and are kind of one with their body. You will feel exposed to it and completely vulnerable to it, as if you have opened up a conduit or bridge, a cord that has bound you to it. Its every move seems to dictate your suffering, and you cannot seem to be free unless the other person changes. And now you will demand they change, rather than look at the fact you are projecting fear.

This really is the ego's version of "forgiveness to destroy" taken to the extreme. The projection of fear blinds you to stepping back or looking into your mind, seeing yourself as doing anything to yourself. It warps your perception and turns it inside out. Cause and effect are backwards and you see yourself as completely victimized. The more you go into it the more you lose sight of the fact that you have any power or are choosing any of this.

Your whole sense of peace then seems to completely "depend" on the other person. If their body has any issue at all, you'll blow it out of proportion and see it as a threat and a danger. And how dare they not resolve it for your benefit. The only way out of this is to stop projecting fear, look at the fear within you, heal it and return to love.

True forgiveness is needed, and you must be clear that fear really is an attempt to attack. "The fearful are apt to be vicious." Viciousness comes out when you are afraid. And by attacking, you will see another as attacking you. And having attacked them by seeing them as only a body, you will see their body as attacking you. Just even by sitting there in its condition, it is experienced as a threat, because you have threatened it, having threatened yourself.

Fear is really part of your self-attack, resulting from guilt, resulting from a belief in sin. Your own sinlessness is the key to salvation and to removing the basis for fear. There is nothing to fear because only love is real.

"It seems to be the body we feel limits our freedom, makes us suffer and at last puts out our life. Yet bodies are but symbols of a concrete form of fear."

"But fear attaches to specifics, being false."

"Bodies attack, but minds do not." "This is the reason bodies easily become fear's symbols."

"The body is the target for attack, for no one thinks he hates a mind."

"When hatred rests upon a thing, it calls for death as surely as God's Voice proclaims there is no death. Fear is insatiable, consuming everything its eyes behold; seeing itself in everything; compelled to turn upon itself and to destroy."

"Who sees a brother as a body sees him as fear's symbol. And he will attack because what he beholds is his own fear external to himself, poised to attack, and howling to unite with him again. Mistake not the intensity of rage projected fear must spawn. It shrieks in wrath, and claws the air in frantic hope it can reach to its maker and devour him."

We're presented with an interesting challenge. Before you seems to be a brother who seems to have a body, seems to have a personality, seems to have a history, seems to believe various things and perceive in various ways.

But then, at the same time, your REAL BROTHER, is actually a spirit being, a soul, who is an absolutely perfect light of Heaven, completely invulnerable and immortal, absolutely awake, totally free from sickness and suffering, perfectly sane, happy, free, and full of love.

So now the question is, when you "relate" or interact with a person, are you going to consider that their bodily limited self is REALLY the person, or are you going to consider that their HOLY self is really the person? And if you acknowledge and relate only with the holy self, does this not show you that the bodily self is NOT WHO HE IS? Does it not frame all of his illusions AS illusions and as lies and falseties about him, that you are not supposed to believe, or see, or confirm, or hold against him?

It becomes now a matter of, are you willing to overlook everything about him that seems to be "here", as a body self, a worldly self, an ego self, and completely IGNORE all of it, and connect and relate ONLY to a REAL SELF, that is hidden by the body, obscured by false perceptions, and lurking in and BEYOND the body as your ACTUAL BROTHER?

Are you willing to realize that all of these body persons are actually not real, all of these forms and differences are illusions, no-one is really a body, no-one is different or unique, everyone is equally a brother and equally lovable? And are you willing therefore to LET GO OF, the belief you've had for thousands of years, that these "people" populating the dream that you thought were "real", they are just shadows of real beings who are temporarily invisible to your body's eyes, and who are absolutely perfect?

At some point we have to become willing to disregard these illusions that are being presented to us, these obstacles to peace, and learn to overlook them. This is literally forgiveness, which changes your perception, awakens your mind and shows you with CHRIST VISION the true nature of the brother that stands before you. And that means learning to question, let go of, ignore, not believe in, not take seriously, and basically disregard, anything and everything about a person that seems "traditionally human", and to instead look PAST THAT, to what can ONLY be the truth about them. That they are still perfectly the Christ as God created them, flawless and immaculate, perfect in every way, unconditional and universal, and free from all suffering, sin, guilt, fear and death.

It's a strange thing to do. Because we've been so used to looking with the body's eyes and seeing "people" and thinking this is all there is to them, looking at bodies and taking them as first-hand reality, looking at behaviors and appearances and differences and thinking this is TRUE of the person, and generally interacting with DREAM CHARACTERS. And these dream characters are NOT REALLY the depiction or representation of your actual brothers. Not unless, perhaps in currently rare cases, your brother is using his body to accurately symbolize his immortality. And even then, he is not his body.

Are you willing to overlook EVERYTHING your body's eyes show you? Are you willing to start interacting with the "higher self" or holy true self of your brothers? Are you willing to stop dwelling on bodies and what bodies do, and start peering deeper into people into their minds and souls? Are you willing to disbelieve anything about your brother that is not given by God, is not in accord with God's laws, and does not represent God's perfection? To recognize that all the rest is NOT TRUE of them or you? And to realize that all of your brothers are your perfect equals AS GOD CREATED US?

This is what it means to forgive your brother. To totally overlook ("to forgive is to overlook") the illusions that hide your brother from you, and learn to SEE the TRUTH of Him, which is absolutely as perfect and permanent as He has always been and forever will be.

"Look at your holy brother, sinless as yourself, and let him lead you there."

"Look, then, BEYOND error, and do not let your perception rest UPON it, for you will believe what your perception HOLDS."

"Forgive him your illusions, and behold how dear a brother he would be to you."

"Your brother has a changelessness in him beyond appearance and deception both."

"And while you see your brother as a body, APART from you and separate in his cell, you are demanding sacrifice of him AND you. "

"And to ACCEPT the limits of a body is to IMPOSE these limits on each brother that you see."

"It must reach out beyond itself, as you reached out beyond the body to LET yourselves be joined."

"Far beyond his dreams is his reality."

"When you attack a brother, you proclaim that he is limited by what you have perceived in him. You do not look beyond his errors. Rather, they are magnified, becoming blocks to your awareness of the Self that lies beyond your own mistakes, and past his seeming sins as well as yours."

The world we made - Earth etc - seems like a world we cannot control. When you look at it, almost no-one has any ability to DIRECTLY move objects with their mind. To change one thing into another. The amount of limitation of the seeming ability to "will that something happens, is EXTREME.

"he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach."

This is because when we made this world, we were willing AGAINST God's will, and against will itself. We thus imposed a sense of imprisonment ON our will and shut ourselves off from our power. In willing a world based on unwillingness, we made a world that is NOT a world "of will", and this has effectively cut our minds off from being able to "will" that the world change.

"You still HAVE the power, but you have interposed so much between it and your AWARENESS of it, that you cannot use it."

This doesn't mean we don't have this power, or cannot access it. But for most people it means they live in such a way that the body limits their entire expression and confines them inside of it. Mind seems unable to reach past it to influence anything. You can't even seem to move a single speck of dust no matter how hard you try.

By making a world of "not will" or unwillingness, or against will, we made a world that seems out of control. A world where things just seem to happen haphazardly and chaotically. Where objects just tumble to the ground, where things just fall and land wherever the wind takes them, and where all manner of stuff just happens seemingly accidentally. As if no-one willed it. As if it just was following some basic laws of physics, which are really the absence of laws.

"You were willing to accept even death to deny your Father. But He would not have it so, and so it is NOT so. You still could not will against Him, and that is why you have no control over the world you made. It is NOT a world of will, because it is governed by the desire to be unlike Him. And this desire IS NOT WILL. The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. For it was made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind, because you were AFRAID of it."

So now we're confronted with a world that we seem unable to control. However, through forgiveness and re-acquiring access to the power of the mind, we can GAIN control over it. And our miracles can demonstrate that this is so. By undoing imprisonment, which involves de-identifying from the prison - the body - we can regain access to the power of the mind.

"Yet this world is ONLY in the mind of its maker, along with his REAL salvation. Do not believe it is outside of yourself, for only by recognizing WHERE it is, will you gain control over it. For you DO have control over your mind, for the mind is the mechanism of decision."

"Yet all that stands between you, and the power of God in you, is but your learning of the false, and your attempts to UNDO THE TRUE. Be willing, then, for ALL of it to be undone, and be glad that you are not bound to it forever. For you have taught yourselves HOW TO IMPRISON THE SON OF GOD, a lesson so unthinkable that only the insane, in deepest sleep, could even DREAM of it."

"People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them."

"But if you use it ONLY to reach the minds of those who believe they ARE bodies and teach them THROUGH the body that THIS IS NOT SO, you will begin to understand the power of the mind that is in both of you."

"Learning must lead BEYOND the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind IN it. This can be accomplished ONLY if the mind EXTENDS to other minds, and does not ARREST ITSELF in its extension."

"I demonstrated both the powerlessness of the body AND the power of the mind, by uniting MY will with that of my Creator, which naturally remembered the Soul and its own real purpose."

"Very few people appreciate the real power of the mind."

"The mind is a very powerful creator, and it never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating, and ALWAYS as you will."

"It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains."

"Why is it strange to you that faith can move mountains? This is indeed a little feat for such a power."

"Your mind is capable of creating worlds"

From lesson 48: "There is nothing to fear."

"The presence of fear is a sure sign that you are trusting in your own strength. The awareness that there is nothing to fear shows that somewhere in your mind, though not necessarily in a place you recognize as yet, you have remembered God, and let His strength take the place of your weakness. The instant you are willing to do this there is indeed nothing to fear."

You would think that trusting yourself and depending on you own strength more would make you somehow more confident. You’d think that if you can just be braver or more stoic or aggressive or assertive, maybe you can be unafraid. Or that if you come across as powerful, others will not intimidate you.

But there is a metaphysical basis for what happens here. When you trust your own *separate* strength, you are actually putting distance between yourself and strength. God is strength. Innocence is strength. Being separate is a belief in not being with God, and not being innocent. So as you move into separation and into "your own" separated self, you move away from the inherent nature of God’s creation, away from divine protection.

This makes you weaker, lacking, uncertain, filled with doubt, afraid of punishment for the sin of being separate, guilty for rejecting God’s help, and thoroughly limits what you can do. No-one can be separate from God and live.

Anyone who has struggled in life can probably tell you that when you are trying to do everything on your own, it sucks bad. Trying to overcome problems and deal with stress and manage everything and to be some kind of separate superhero, absent of God’s help, has its major limits. Trying to "go solo" is suicide.

The more you do it, the more you *seem* to become some kind of heroic savior, or successful achiever, or person of pride, or someone who has conquered the world. You come across on the surface as invincible. Nothing could be further from the truth. The more that you try to become the ego’s version of invincibility, the more you will become vulnerable, fragile, paranoid, empty, weak and sick. Being the hero of the dream is a trap. This is why heroes die.

True strength is only possible when you share with God. True resilience, invulnerability, power, confidence, certainty, immovability and permanence can only be found by allowing God to be the one who supplies your every need. Without God, you are without life. Without God, you are alone and you now have to defend yourself against an entire world you see as willing against you. Without God there is weakness and death. You cannot live without God.

So if you are afraid, it is a sure sign that you are depending too heavily on "your own" strength. It’s strange to think that you are feeling afraid because you are believing that you are powerful. Or that you are afraid because you think you are tough. Or you are afraid because you believe you can do anything and everything and don’t need any help. Or you are afraid because you see yourself as not needing any help. But this is precisely the backwards effects which the ego produces, pretending it is going to help you to be more distinctly separate, when all it does is hurt you more.

If you are afraid, it means you are not trusting God right now. It means you are listening to the ego and are fantasizing about how powerful you are. Trying to be powerful without God makes you powerless. To have power over others against their will strips you of your power and turns you into a vulnerable victim. If you are afraid, you need to let go of trying to do this all on your own. The more you try, the more you will fail. Seek and do not find.

It is not necessary to do everything on your own. Nor is it a matter of being a separate hero and having Holy Spirit back you up or having mighty companions to support you and surround you. I used to do that more, trying to retain my separate will and have Holy Spirit as a kind of servant to do my bidding and make my separate problems go away.

It’s more a matter of surrendering control of what you think is "your life", which you are trying to will independently of God, and give your life back to God. Make room for Him to help you. Let Him share it with you. Let Him solve the problems and carry the burden. Let Him look after others for you. Allow the freedom of not having to carry the whole world on your shoulders. It’s too big for anyone to do so in isolation.

Share your life with God and you gain the power of God. Paradoxically, allowing Him to live through you will allow you to live forever. Letting Him take over and direct you specifically, and being willing to listen and learn and do, to follow direction, will be far better for you than the outcomes you are trying to manipulate into being. Controlling your will and making it oppose God’s is not ever going to work in your favor.

God has a plan. God knows how to fix stuff. God knows what everyone needs, including you. Let Him lead the way and there will be no fear. Trust Him, and all your worries will vanish.

"To the extent to which you identify with the ego's self, you will identify with the ego's strategy, and so you will become afraid of the power of your mind."

Ask Jesus what to do! Learn to ask Him more than you ask yourself. So often I am considering what to do or not do, relying on my own self to know and be able ego decide. Jesus says, "ask!"

"Before you choose to do anything, ask me if your choice is in accord with mine. If you are sure that it is, there will be no fear."

The nature of the mind is completely opposite to the nature of the body.

Mind is inclusive and expansive. It is everywhere and is shared by everyone. Everyone is one in mind. Mind is collective and joined. It reaches out and extends and creates. It knows no limits and isn't confined to any location. It is endless and immortal. Your mind is shared with other people's minds and they're all joined together.

Body is exclusive and restrictive. It is only in one place at a time and is not shared by anyone. One body is separated off from another body and kept apart by space and time. Bodies are singular and not joined, and they never can join. Bodies cannot create or extend themselves. They are limitations and are limited. The body is mortal and finite. The body is not shared with anyone else's body and all bodies are separate.

"It is only the awareness of the body that makes love seem limited. For the body IS a limit on love. The belief in limited love was its origin, and it was MADE to limit the UNlimited. Think not that this is merely allegorical; for it was made to limit YOU. Can you who see yourselves WITHIN a body, know yourself AS AN IDEA?"

The strange predicament that you have is that you seem to have both a mind and a body. This can go one of two ways. If you narrow your mind, move towards selfishness, believe in separation, exclude or isolate, imprison yourself or others, have an attacking attitude, move away from wholeness, deny your immortality, or in any way reject God, you are attempting to turn your mind INTO a body. To exclude and isolate and separate it off.

You're trying to separate yourself off and achieve the goals of the body. If you are trying not to share, to be selfish, to hoard, to possess or own, to be unlike, to be different and special, then you are forming a sense of self that is no longer infinite and unlimited. It forms a sense of self that is very reduced and isolated, excluded and cut off from others. And that is going to make you picture yourself AS a "body" - a limited self. And this produces the body.

This is body-identification. It's you aligning yourself with the idea of being a prisoner, isolated to a small speck of existence and kept away from everyone else. This happens when your mind is believing in what the body suggests is true, sees itself AS a body, and shares the "truth" of the body. By believing you are body-like, that your mind is physical, you are in a state of level confusion and delusion. The mind is trying to be forced into a tiny little container to limit it and shut out the wholeness of God.

"The body is a fence the Son of God imagines he has built to separate parts of his Self from other parts. It is within this fence he thinks he lives, to die as it decays and crumbles. For within this fence he thinks that he is safe from love. Identifying with his safety, he regards himself as what his safety is."

"The body is a tiny fence around a little part of a glorious and completely limitless idea. It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little segment of Heaven, splintered from the whole, proclaiming that, within it, is YOUR Kingdom, where God can enter not. Within this kingdom the ego rules, and cruelly. And, to defend this little speck of dust, it bids you fight against the universe."

Mind cannot function properly when you do this. Mind's natural state of completely expansive and infinite. It is shared and is everywhere at once. It has no limits and there is nothing it cannot do. But if you try to identify your sense of self as limited and mortal and restricted and partial and taking sides and being cut off from relationship and so on, you are trying to force the mind to be like a body. This is very unnatural for the mind. It does not belong in a little vessel of death.

The problem then is that on the one hand, you seem to have a body temporarily, and live in a world of separation. The physical world is entirely based on separation ideas. Thoughts of "here and not there". Thoughts of "this and not that". Thoughts of distance (space) and the past (time). Where even the presence of bodies can at times be rare and unusual. Where no two things are alike and nothing can really share anything.

So if you live a "life" as a body, in a body-oriented world, thinking in separate terms of "me not you", isolated and alone, not sharing minds or joining beyond the limits of the prison walls, then you are being limited "by" the body. Or rather you are choosing to use the body as a template for limitation so that the mind can see itself as a prisoner of spacetime.

It may then seem that in the world of bodies there is a certain "nature", that it's totally natural and normal for "body people" to live a certain kind of selfish lifestyle, where the body is the hero of the dream and the central figure, where everything revolves around one's own body and not others, where your whole experience is one of loneliness and isolation and wariness of other bodies. But this seems natural and normal and commonplace because "everybody" seems to be experiencing the same problems.

But this is wholly UNNATURAL for the mind. The mind is not designed to function as separate. It is not designed to NOT share. It is not designed for selfishness or limitation, for being locked into one place and not another, to be capable of only doing what the physical body can seem to do, or to have no powers or abilities that transcend the body's limits. Mind is not comfortable when it is limited to the body.

"To be without the body is to be in your natural state."

So you've got mind which is totally infinite and unlimited and shared and whole, trying to be forced to live in a a little tiny body which is finite and limited and unshared and unwhole. It's a very awkward situation. Now you seem to have to drag the body around to do a very limited amount of stuff, as if your mind has no power beyond it.

The challenge then becomes, while you're having a body, how do you transcend the body? How do you let mind return to being its natural expanded state? How do you let mind be free and not "a body", to not identify as a body, or see itself as limited BY the body? How do you get the mind to reach out and join and share with someone, in such a way that it HAS to DEFY the body? That it has to work AGAINST and DENY the body in order to be true to itself? The mind can only be natural when it is not allowing the body to limit it at all.

You can't achieve any kind of spirituality on a physical level. Bodies cannot join. The atoms will not allow it. Atomic forces will keep the two lumps separate. There is no oneness of bodies ever. Bodies do not communicate. Bodies do not share. Bodies testify to the ego's mantra of "I am separate and alone". They are prison-houses designed to separate off.

At best the body can be transcended and its limitations no longer limit the mind. But to do this the mind has to learn that it is NOT a body. It also has to realize therefore that the body is false and has no power OVER it, to cause it to be limited. This essentially means the body has to be recognized as NOTHING, and as MEANINGLESS. Either the mind is real or the body is real, and it cannot be both.

But really it means the mind must stop regarding itself as BODY-LIKE, must dis-identify FROM the body, and must extend outward, join, share, and experience oneness. It must unite with everyone and resume its natural function of equality and sharing and wholeness and love. It can only do this by not regarding itself as having any limitations, by not believing the body at all, and by not being tempted by anything in the world of bodies. To not believe it is finite or limited or mortal or alone.

So your mind has to decide whether to regard itself AS A MIND, or AS A BODY. It has to choose one or the other. Either it is unlimited or limited, either it is immortal or mortal. Either it is locked into a specific space and time or it is endless and eternal and everywhere. Either it shares with everyone or it is alone.

This is why waking up can seem so difficult, because you're living in an entire world of separateness while trying to NOT be separate. Trying to share and join and love, which has to BYPASS the body. Trying to have a vision which does not DEPEND on the body for sight, because the body CAN NEVER see reality. To be identified with spirit and not with flesh. To be in the world but not of it, and not LIKE it. To be opposite to the NATURE of the world, to the nature of the body, and to the nature of space and time. To be under only the laws of God, and not the laws of the physical.

It is therefore very awkward for us to have bodies, because they function totally opposite to how our mind functions. Their nature is totally unlike the mind's nature. They get in the way. They are obstacles which keep wanting to testify to truths which are completely false, and keep wanting to follow pathways toward death which are contrary to the mind's goal of life. The body's ways HAVE to be denied at some point through the proper use of denial, if mind is to be allowed to relax and be true to itself.

"The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen." "Yet, in the dreaming, has this been reversed, and ****separate minds are seen as bodies****, which ARE separated, and which cannot JOIN."

"You CANNOT join with anything EXCEPT reality."

"To be of one mind is meaningful, but to be of one body is meaningless. By the laws of mind, then, the body IS meaningless."

"A mind and body cannot both exist. Make no attempt to reconcile the two, for one denies the other can be real. If you are physical your mind is gone from your self-concept, for it has no place in which it could be really part of you. If you are Spirit, then the body must be meaningless to your reality."

"For your beliefs converge upon the body, the ego's chosen home, which you believe is YOURS. You meet at a mistake; - an error in your self-appraisal. The ego joins with an ILLUSION of yourself you SHARE with it. And yet, illusions cannot join. They ARE the same, and they are nothing."

"Learning must lead BEYOND the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind IN it. This can be accomplished ONLY if the mind EXTENDS to other minds, and does not ARREST ITSELF in its extension. The arrest of the mind's extension is the cause of all illness, because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND's FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND's JOY."

"In Heaven God's Son is NOT imprisoned in a body, nor is sacrificed in solitude to sin. And as he is in Heaven, so MUST he be eternally and everywhere."

"God did not make the body, because it is destructible, and therefore not of the Kingdom. The body is the symbol of WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE. It is clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist. The Holy Spirit, as always, takes what you have made and translates it into a learning device FOR you. Again, as always, it re-interprets what the ego uses as an argument FOR separation into an argument AGAINST it."

"Everyone can use his body best by enlarging man's perception, so he can see the real VISION. THIS VISION is invisible to the physical eye. The ultimate purpose of the body is to render itself unnecessary. Learning to do this is the only real reason for its creation."

"Real vision is not only unlimited by space and distance, but it does not depend on the body's eyes at all. The mind is its only source."

It is important for you to claim the atonement for yourself, because you are an extender of God's love.

If there is a block in your awareness, whereby you are not willing to receive love for yourself, love is not going to be able to flow through you to other people.

Love comes from God, goes through you, and extends outward to others.

If you put up a roadblock in your mind where you are not willing to receive love yourself, you will be incapable of allowing that love to fully flow through you to others.

You only will see God in everything you see when God is in your mind, and God has to be in your mind FIRST. The doors have to be open for the light to shine through.

You might think it is important to learn to love others as much as possible. I thought this was what I was supposed to do, becoming very loving and try to love all the time. But Holy Spirit corrected me on this.

He said, "you must love yourself first."

If you cannot love yourself, you cannot love others. The amount of love you can give entirely depends on how much love you have. If you are empty of love, you can try to fake it, to sacrifice, and to strain to try to love others, but you will hit walls and limitations.

There will be ways in which you also believe that other people are not lovable, they are just too irritating or annoying or upsetting, or they make bad choices or attack you or whatever. You will think that it is because of them that you cannot love them, or that you can only love them conditionally some of the time.

When pushed to your limits you will find out that in fact the thing stopping you from being able to love this monstrous enemy is your own inability to love any more than you already do. And the reason you can't do that is because you're hitting the limit of how much you love yourself.

So then it becomes a matter of, it's not really other people that you can't love another ounce, it's yourself. You yourself are hitting the limits of how loving you can be, because there is something about your own self that you do not love. There is a blockage in you, an unwillingness to let that much love be present in you.

So now it's simply impossible for you to love other people that much extra without FIRST addressing what it is about your own self that seems unlovable. You have to make room for love in yourself before you can love others that much more.

It seems ideal and appealing to be very loving to others as much as possible but you simply will not be able to, or willing to, and you will stop short of being able to find that much love and compassion in you, simply because you yourself are not willing to let YOU be loved that much.

The challenge then is learning to let yourself be loved, to become open to love and receive love for yourself. This means undoing false ego beliefs and self attack, so that you can come to believe the truth is true and be actually WILLING to accept the truth - your innocence - your lovability. You must therefore accept Atonement FOR YOURSELF, SO THAT you can access and receive love, be open to love coming to you, open to it flowing through you, and thus be able to offer it to others.

When you do this, when you take that sole responsibility of accepting atonement for yourself, it means you are now willing to receive love and recognize that you CAN be loved and are loved. This willingness to acknowledge the worthiness of love within yourself GIVES YOU the ability to see love and worthiness in others, you will believe they deserve that love also, and then you will give it to them. This is the START of your ability to be MIRACULOUS, because miracles are always expressions of love.

You must receive the gift of love first in order to give it. You must receive the miracle for yourself first in order to give it. You must heal yourself before you can heal others. And you must forgive yourself before you can extend forgiveness to others. It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive. It is the privilege of the healed to heal. It is the privilege of those who have accepted miraculous truth for themselves to perform miracles to help others be freed from their illusions of suffering.

Accepting the Atonement for yourself, as your sole responsibility, should never be seen as meaning that other people are SEPARATE from you or that they are excluded from your atonement. Once you have accepted atonement for yourself you ARE accepting it on behalf of everyone else, and it WILL result in you becoming loving towards others and able to perform miracles for them.

Many people use this "sole responsibility" as an argument for some kind of "private awakening", which excludes everyone else and it used to explain why you would not then perform and miracles. Its meaning is totally the opposite. To accept the atonement is to accept oneness, which applies to YOU AND EVERYONE because it makes you an extender of love. You must take responsibility for accepting it for yourself, SO THAT you enter into a state of SHARING, and are then able to EXTEND THE ATONEMENT to other people in the form of miracles. The atonement justifies being a miracle worker.